


The Saddest Lines

by AmandaRex



Category: The X-Files
Genre: 6x15 Arcadia, Angst, F/M, Inspired by Poetry, MSR, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 21:32:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5943840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmandaRex/pseuds/AmandaRex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder's thoughts during "Arcadia" after Scully kicks him out of the bedroom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Saddest Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 1999, reposted as part of moving fics to AO3. 
> 
> This vignette is based on the beautiful poem "Tonight I can write", an English translation of one of Pablo Neruda's "Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair", and also inspired by Samuel Barber's musical setting of the poem. No infringement on the works of Mr. Neruda, Mr. Barber, or Chris Carter intended. If you'd like to read the Neruda poem that inspired this work, it follows in the notes at the end.

We're not the same anymore, Scully and I. 

Just now, I realize I'm clutching this pillow to myself like a lover -- the pillow she handed me before she kicked me out of her bed. Like I'd hold her. Like I would have held her. But here I am, staring out the window. The window of our fake house, surrounding our faked marriage, and my very real feelings for my very real partner. 

And just look at the sky. The stars, they're so beautiful. Like light reflecting off the ocean. Like the sparkle in Scully's eyes. And the wind, blowing around the house, its sound mellifluous and full. Like her voice, as beautiful when she's admonishing me as the rare and magical sound of her laugh. 

I love her. I know that now. And when I look into her eyes, in the moments when she allows me to really look, I can see that she once loved me too. Once. But perhaps not now. 

How many nights like this did I ignore? How many nights of wondrous celestial display and rushing wind passed unnoticed around me as I thought of her? Loving her in my mind. Kissing her. Being accepted by her, despite my faults, despite the difficulty that sometimes passed between us. 

It wasn't real. But was it? It was so real, a true and complete imagining of my love for her, had the opportunity, or the courage, arisen to make it a reality. 

I love her. It seems so simple now. So simple, and so impossible. How can anyone not love her? How has she been able to cloister herself away -- the uncommonness of her beauty somehow going unnoticed? 

Is it too late? Could I awaken her still? Could I go to her, tell her... 

No. I couldn't. Not after what I've done. Not after I looked at her and told her I didn't trust her. Not after I nearly abandoned her, not after I felt the kiss of another. 

I didn't respond to Diana. All I could think as her lips touched mine was the attempt I'd made to kiss Scully. 

I recalled my lips barely brushing Scully's, then watching as she fell, just as I always knew she would. My love will destroy her. And Diana's will destroy me, as well. I knew that as I felt the hotness of her breath playing over my lips. I didn't dare to react, knowing we were all doomed from the beginning. 

I love her. But it isn't enough. It can't protect her. 

And just look at the sky. Such beauty. Paling to hers. Her brilliance, shining brighter than any of those pinpricks of light, shuddering and twinkling before me. Shuddering as she would under my hand, under my lips, under my body as I make love to her. Loving her forever, completely, unafraid, without boundary or reservation. 

These other houses. Couple after couple. Could their love possibly rival this? Did their love reach the depths of this ache? This ache, its depth marking the realization of what I will never have, what I've ruined with my suspicion and fear? 

Couldn't I go back? Couldn't we go back, undo the damage that had been done? Was there any explanation to remove the pain? Will I ever see the light in her eyes I've imagined a thousand times? I'd convinced myself I didn't love her, I'd had to follow it like a beacon as we struggled against one another, as our conflicts became more adversarial, more personal, dangerously exposing our vulnerabilities. 

I even know the moment I killed her trust completely, when I denied her instincts and humiliated her in front of Langly, Frohike, and Byers. I convinced myself I'd killed our love. Hers for me, certainly. And mine for her. How else could I have said that to her, spat those words at her, insulted her investment in the work we've invested our souls in for the past six years? 

No, I don't love her. I couldn't. 

But I do. 

I have to deny it. I have to push it away. I tried to show her, and I nearly got her killed. I tried to tell her, and she ignored it, perhaps as frightened of it as I was. 

I will have to stand back, watch her as she gives up on me, moves on. Marries. Yes, she should. She should be happy. 

But I can't watch it. I can't watch as another man's lips touch hers. I can't watch another man cast into my place. I can't even imagine another man losing himself in her voice, her body. In her eyes. 

Our time together has been so short, though I certainly never doubted I'd manage to ruin every good thing life handed me. I'm surprised it's taken this long. 

Forgetting. That will be forever, and I still won't succeed. I know now, my last thoughts before leaving this earth will be the sound of her voice. The shiver that passes over me when I look into her eyes. 

And here comes the familiar pain, only a shadow of what is to come, spending my life knowing I've killed her love. And it's only just begun. 

We're not the same anymore, Scully and I. 

And just look at the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Tonight I can write by Pablo Neruda [English Translation]
> 
> Tonight I can write the saddest lines,  
> Write, for example: "The night is starry  
> and the blue stars shiver in the distance."  
> The nightwind revolves in the sky and sings.  
> Tonight I can write the saddest lines.  
> I loved her and sometimes she loved me too.  
> Through nights like this  
> I held her in my arms  
> I kissed her so many times  
> under the infinite sky.
> 
>  
> 
> She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.  
> How could one not have loved  
> her great staring eyes?  
> Tonight I can write the saddest lines.  
> To think I do not have her.  
> To feel that I have lost her.  
> What does it matter  
> that my love could not keep her?  
> The night is starry and she is not with me.  
> This is all. Far away someone is dreaming.  
> Far away.  
> The same night that makes the same trees white.
> 
>  
> 
> We, of that time, are no longer the same.  
> I no longer love her, it is true,  
> but how much I loved her!  
> Another's. She will be another's.  
> As she was before my kisses.  
> Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.  
> I no longer love her, it is true,  
> but maybe I love her....  
> Love is so short, forgetting is so long.  
> Even though this be the last pain  
> that she cause me  
> and these the last verses that I write for her.


End file.
